• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Shop
    • Gift Vouchers
    • Binoculars and Scopes
    • View Cart
    • Your Account
      • edit-account
      • edit-address
      • lost-password
  • Wildlife Tours
    • Discover Wildlife Weekends
    • Guided Wildlife and Birding Walks
    • Custom Wildlife and Birding Tours
  • Schools
  • Books
  • News
    • Irish Wildlife News
    • International Wildlife News
    • Wildlife Events
    • Wildlife Press Releases
  • Articles
    • Blog
      • Birding
      • Wildlife Photography
      • Whales and Dolphins
      • Mammals
      • Wildlife Podcasts
        • The Calendar Road
      • Biodiversity
      • Wildlife Calendar
    • Species Profiles
      • Amphibians
      • Birds
      • Fish
      • Fungi
      • Invertebrates
      • Mammals
      • Plants
      • Reptiles
    • Feature Articles
      • Choosing Binoculars
      • Birding for Beginners
      • How to watch whales and dolphins
      • How to watch Basking Sharks
      • Wildlife travel
    • Wildlife Portfolio
    • Wild Wide Web
    • Reviews
      • Book Reviews
      • Gear Reviews
        • Wildlife Optics
          • Binocular Reviews
          • Spotting Scope Reviews
        • Wildlife Clothing
        • Wildlife Accessories
  • Work with us
    • Write for us
    • Advertise with us
    • Sponsorship Opportunities
    • Wildlife Marketing Services
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Disclosure Statement
    • Cookie policy (EU)
  • Contact

Ireland's Wildlife

Irish wildlife, nature and biodiversity

You are here: Home / Featured / Woodstone® Seville 28mm Nest box Review

Woodstone® Seville 28mm Nest box Review

February 11, 2022 by Calvin Jones Leave a Comment

Woodstone Nest Box

Pros: Innovative design using robust high-insulating material. Easy access for cleaning. Available in a wide range of styles, colours and designs. 10 year guarantee.

Cons: A little on the heavy side… although once in situ that’s not really an issue and the weight actually makes the box more stable. Not 100% sure of the eco-credentials of the concrete element of the material used.

Price: €24.99

The Woodstone range of nest boxes by Vivara/CJ Wildlife offers an innovative twist on traditional wooden nest box designs. Constructed from a novel combination of concrete and natural wood fibres, these boxes are strong, long-lasting and offer superb insulating properties — making for happier birds and more successful broods.

Rating: Highly Recommended

Woodstone® Seville 28mm Nestbox Full Review

Woodstone Nest Box Review

Nest boxes come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but they are all much the same. Four walls, a roof, a floor and either an entrance hole or open front to allow access to potential residents. It’s rare to see anything truly innovative when it comes to nest boxes. So I was intrigued when I received one of CJ Wildlife Ireland’s new Woodstone nestboxes to review on the site.

This was unlike any nest box I’d ever seen.

Woodstone boxes are cast from what appears to be cement or concrete, but a closer look reveals there’s more going on here. The material is actually made from (and I guess the clue is in the name) a clever combination of concrete and sustainable FSC certified wood fibres. In other words, it’s made out of concrete, mixed with sawdust.

Woodstone Nest Box Material

The result is a material that’s strong, hard-wearing, has superb insulating properties and is breathable. That ticks a lot of the right boxes for the perfect nest box. An ideal nest box has to keep birds… and their eggs and chicks, dry and at a temperature that doesn’t fluctuate too much through the breeding season. A good nest box should stay cool enough on hot-summer days, and retain heat when it’s cooler outside, or when parent birds are away foraging.

Wood does a great job of that, which is why the vast majority of nest boxes on the market are made of wood. The one problem with wood is that it doesn’t last, particularly in the Irish climate. Because you can’t really treat nest boxes with potentially harmful/toxic preservatives, wooden boxes can deteriorate quickly. You’ll get a few seasons out of them, maybe four if you’re lucky, but then you’ll have to replace them.

Woodstone Nestboxes

Woodstone boxes are different. They don’t deteriorate or degrade, won’t rot, are impervious to the Irish climate, and, of course, unlike wooden nest boxes, they are impenetrable to predators. They also come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, a selection of colours, and with different entrance options to suit different bird species. There are even speciality Woodstone boxes for species like swifts, house martins and even kingfishers.

So in theory, Woodstone nest boxes make sense. But what about in practice?

Using Woodstone nest boxes.

The first thing to note is that these things are heavy. They have a significant heft, so you’ll need to make sure you fix them securely. Luckily, they come with a tree-friendly stainless steel hook that simply screws in, and the nest box hangs easily from that (there’s also a wall-plug included if you want to attach it to a wall). Thanks to its weight, the nest box stays put, even in strong winds, so there’s no need for additional fixings.

For cleaning, the front panel is detachable. You simply rotate the two metal fasteners anticlockwise, and remove the front plate, giving easy access to the body of the nest box.

Conclusion

This Woodstone Seville 28mm nest box has replaced a wooden nest box that had seen much better days here at IWHQ. It’s been up about a month, looks great, and has shown no signs of ill effects from the wind and rain of an Irish January and February. So far there have been no visitors, but it’s still a little early yet. A pair of blue tits used the previous nest box in the same location every year, so I have high hopes they’ll take up residence in this upgraded des-res once the breeding season kicks in.

If you’re looking for a nest box upgrade, or just a new nest box that will withstand the rigours of the Irish climate for a decade or more, check out the Woodstone range on the Birdfood.ie website.

Filed Under: Featured, Garden Wildlife Tagged With: breeding, garden birds, garden wildlife, nest boxes

About Calvin Jones

Calvin Jones is a freelance writer, author, birder and lifelong wildlife enthusiast. He is founder and editor of IrelandsWildlife.com and founder and wildlife guide of Ireland's Wildlife Tours offering wildlife and birding holidays on Ireland's south coast.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Search the site

  • Microthemer - Visual editor for your WordPress site

Subscribe to the mailing list








Supporting Ireland’s Wildlife

  • Microthemer - Visual editor for your WordPress site

*****

Footer

Experience Ireland’s Wildlife for yourself

Breaching humpback whale Ireland

Join us on a wildlife adventure on Ireland’s Wild South Coast… and find out first hand why we call this Europe’s Undiscovered Wildlife Frontier.

Find out more…

Ireland's Wildlife runs on the Genesis Framework from StudioPress · Hosted with InterServer

Recent Additions

  • Free shore-based whale watching events to mark National Biodiversity Week
  • Competiton: win a border full of wildlife-friendly plants this spring
  • Woodstone® Seville 28mm Nest box Review
  • CJ Wildlife Free Delivery Weekend Plus Feeder and Food Giveaway
  • 9 top tips for feeding your garden birds
  • Europe’s Birds, An Identification Guide (Book Review)
  • 12 Expert tips on choosing binoculars for birding and wildlife observation
  • Attract more wildlife to your garden this Black Friday

Tags

audio binoculars biodiversity birding birds Birdwatch Ireland books cetaceans citizen science CJ Wildlife competition conservation Cork fin whale full size binoculars garden birds garden wildlife Golden Eagle Trust humpback whale Ireland IWDG Kerry mammals national biodiversity data centre npws optics photography raptors reintroduction review reviews spring stranding surveys Vanguard west cork whales whales and dolphins whale watching whalewatching white tailed eagle Wildlife wildlife crime wildlife photography wildlife podcasts

Take it from the top....

Copyright © 2022 Ireland's Wildlife · Site Design by West Cork Websites · Content by CJ Writing

Manage Cookie Consent
Like most sites, Ireland's Wildlife uses cookies to improve functionality, enhance your user experience and to gauge the popularity of our content.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}